In network communications, HARQ (hybrid automatic repeat request) is an anti-fading and anti-interference technology. Initially developed based on a wired network, data communications generally requires high bandwidth and transmission quality. As for a wired connection, reliability of data transmission is ensured by means of retransmission. When a transmission attempt fails, a data packet needs to be retransmitted. Such a transmission mechanism is referred to as ARQ (automatic repeat request). In a wireless transmission environment, channel transmission quality is poor due to fading caused by channel noise or mobility and interference from other users. Therefore, data packets need to be protected from various types of interference. The protection is mainly to use FEC (forward error correction) to transmit extra bits in the packets. However, excessive forward error correction reduces transmission efficiency. Therefore, HARQ, a hybrid solution combining ARQ and FEC, is put forward. It should be noted that when a terminal communicates with a base station by using the HARQ technology, a HARQ process is data transmission scheduled by the base station. A quantity of HARQ processes is a quantity of concurrent HARQs of the terminal. One HAQR entity may include multiple HARQ processes.
In the prior art, a terminal has a limited capability because of cost consideration, technical support, and other factors, and a quantity of supported HARQ entities is consequently limited (a maximum of only eight HARQ entities are supported at present), that is, only transport blocks of a quantity equal to the quantity of supported HARQ entities (for example, 8) can be received at one moment. A base station has many spectrums available and can configure a large quantity of frequency resources: carriers or channels (for example, 32) for the terminal to perform communication. However, the terminal cannot simultaneously receive, by using the HARQ entities, data blocks transmitted over all carriers or channels configured by the base station for the terminal. Consequently, the base station cannot communicate with the terminal by simultaneously using all carriers or channels configured for the terminal, and communication efficiency is limited.